| Situation Update No. 1 Ref.no.: FF-20100126-24697-PER
Situation Update No. 1
On 2010-01-26 at 04:09:58 [UTC]
Event: Flash Flood
Location: Peru Urubamba Valley Machu Picchu Number of Evacuated: 1950 person(s)
Situation: Peru’s government began evacuating 1,950 tourists stranded near the Machu Picchu archeological site following flash floods, Foreign Trade and Tourism Minister Martin Perez said today. Air force and police helicopters will airlift tourists unable to return to the nearby city of Cuzco by rail after the southern Andean region experienced the heaviest rains in 15 years, Perez said. Three hundred people have been forced to abandon their hike along the Inca trail, about 7,700 feet above sea level, to Peru’s biggest tourist attraction, he said. The first evacuation took place this afternoon, Perez said. Rising river levels following heavy rainfall in the last few days flooded the railway line between Cuzco and Machu Picchu, causing Orient Express Hotels Ltd.’s Peru Rail unit to halt service along the route, state news agency Andina reported. “Our priority is to airlift tourists out of Machu Picchu so they can return to Cuzco,” Perez told Canal N television. The operation will take 20-hours using five helicopters, he said. The 15th-century Machu Picchu citadel attracts more than 700,000 visitors a year, according to government data. Tourism is Peru’s fourth-largest source of revenue, earning about $2 billion in 2008. Heavy rainfall triggered landslides and tripled water levels in rivers such as the Vilcanota, which runs past Machu Picchu, flooding roads and destroying bridges, the Transport Ministry said in an e-mailed statement. The government has declared a state of emergency in Cuzco and Apurimac, Cabinet Chief Javier Velasquez said. Vehicle access to the Inca ruins from a nearby town, also named Machu Picchu, has been halted on safety concerns, Perez told reporters in Lima. Cuzco’s airport has reopened allowing tourists to travel to the capital Lima, he said. “We hope everything will be back to normal within a few days,” Perez said. |
